Come Back to Where We Stood
by fasterassembly
Summary: Persona 4. Pre-game. Chie draws the line in the sand, and then crosses it. Chie, Yukiko, and a failed attempt at running away from Inaba. Chie/Yukiko.


When the police ask "why," the answer is a flat out lie. Chie says that they wanted to go to the city and lost track of time. After the awkward silence in which no one believes her, Yukiko repeats the story, and all doubt falls away.

Really, everything begins with Yukiko. It seems like everything in Chie's life begins and ends with her. Chie can barely remember a time where there wasn't Yukiko, even though she knows that she's definitely had a life in the eleven years between the time when she knew of Yukiko Amagi and when Yukiko Amagi became her friend. It just feels like she doesn't because she wasn't the same person back then. Yukiko redefined who Chie was, and defines who Chie is. Chie doesn't know if Yukiko thinks the same thing about her. She probably doesn't. She's Chie Satonaka, Yukiko's best friend. Yukiko is the heir of the Amagi Inn. It doesn't take a genius to know who holds most of the power in their relationship, even if people don't always see things the way they actually are. Chie doesn't mind this. After all, she means something to Yukiko, too, something that's hard to define and impossible to explain. If Yukiko made Chie (and that's the way it is, Chie thinks, on the nights when Yukiko's too busy to even talk to her), then Chie is Yukiko's way out of the Inn. Or the expectations. Or something.

Chie doesn't know. She hopes it's true, because if it isn't, then she's disposable. She doesn't want to be not needed.

So when Yukiko says, "Chie. Let's run away together," Chie answers, "Yeah, sure" without thinking. And then her thoughts catch back up with her mouth, and she reels, trying to figure out what she's just agreed to, trying to wrap her head around the fact that Yukiko wants to run away, the fact that they're just first years in high school and _running away_.

Yukiko is quiet as Chie's mind goes through a hundred excuses, and translates them to an open-mouthed shock. Yukiko's lips draw together. It's raining outside.

"I took some cash from the register," she says. Her red umbrella blooms in the rain. "I can't go back."

And that's why they're at to Okina Station. Chie spends a lot of time torn between trying to figure out if this is real or not. Nothing feels like it's actually happening. The busy station, the stale city air, and the press of people all seems real enough until she thinks, "Oh, wow, I'm running away from home right now," and then everything except for Yukiko clatters to the ground.

It's stopped raining a while ago, and the air lingers humid on their skin. The sky is darkening. The dog will need a walk soon enough. It's a thought so utterly banal that Chie is for a moment staggered by her own selfishness. Shame on her, for thinking about the dog when Yukiko needs her most. But there's a part of her that says, "Doesn't Yukiko know that I'm more than just her friend? That I know other people, that I'm not just an extension of her?" She feels sick. There are knots in her stomach.

"Yukiko, it's getting late," she says. Their parents are probably looking for them by now, she almost says, but doesn't. "Are you hungry?"

"No. Not really."

Chie bites her lip. That part of her speaks again: Well, so what if she says she's not hungry, _I'm_ hungry. She grabs Yukiko's elbow and leads her to a noodle stand and orders a large bowl for them to share. Sure enough, halfway through the meal Yukiko's chopsticks dip into the bowl, noodles vanish into a pink mouth.

_Hah_, the dark part of her says. That and nothing else, but Chie's cheeks flush with shame. She feels smaller and smaller every time that thing speaks. Chie pays for the meal, and they wander around Okina again.

"You didn't take any money from the Inn, did you?" Chie says as they near the station again. Yukiko bites her lip, turns away. She sighs and takes out her wallet, counts the bills and coins. "Fifty-two hundred," she says. The 'and I'd have more if I didn't just pay for our dinner' is left implied. "How much do you have?"

"You want to go home, don't you?" She's not even taking out her purse, just standing there, staring at Chie with an accusation quivering between them.

"I'm just saying—" She's not even sure what she's just saying, but Yukiko hears it well enough anyway.

"I know what you're 'just saying'."

A heavy silence falls between them. Chie finds herself walking away from the train station, just to prove that she doesn't want to go home and that she's brave enough to strike out on her own. And then Yukiko will chase after her and they'll scrounge up some money and do this running away thing properly. That's the way it's supposed to go, at least. Yukiko doesn't follow.

* * *

Chie gets lost without meaning to. She's not that good at shopping, and after a while all the stores begin to throb and blend together: handbags and swimsuits and a brilliant red dress that stirs something in her. She imagines Yukiko in it, and imagines Yukiko here with her, testing the material of the dress against her fingers and then trying it on. That's what they're supposed to be doing right now: the two of them wandering the shops of Okina, then checking into some cheap love motel for the night and giggling at the condoms or something. It isn't supposed to end with her standing in the middle of a store fingering a dress that look good on someone who isn't with her, and hoping for a call that will never arrive.

Chie comes around full circle and ends up back at the station. She can't make another pass around the strip mall, not without feeling suspicious, but she doesn't want to stay here all night, either. Her eyes are hot. She wipes them against her sleeve. If only, she thinks, Yukiko were here. But knowing Yukiko, she's taken the next train back to Inaba and left Chie here. They'll never speak again. Who is she supposed to hang out with now? Who is she supposed to protect?

She has to go back home. Her parents will be mad, but it's better than getting stuck here. It's dark and the roads are slick with tears.

When she goes to the platform, she sees Yukiko sitting at a bench. Her hands are clenched together, twisted in her skirt. Chie moves towards Yukiko, first cautiously, then more boldly. Yukiko's eyes widen when she sees Chie. She stands up, and picks up a bag by her feet, as though she's really gone shopping.

"Chie," she breathes, and they're hugging each other like they haven't seen each other in weeks. Chie fists her hand around warm, dark hair, and a red sweater. Her other hand's splayed out on Yukiko's back. They stay like that for a while, and disengage just long enough to get on the train when it pulls in. Then their fingers are caught up in one another, shoulder touching shoulder, looking at one another as though they could transmit apologies through the air.

Chie almost thinks they can until it speaks up again: Why isn't she saying sorry, look at her, she can't even run away right without me.

"Yukiko," she says, and Yukiko looks up, eyes half-hidden behind her bangs. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." Yukiko squeezes Chie's hand, and she really does look sorry, eyes serious and dark. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…" She trails off. The dark thing fills in words into the blank: _tried to leave Inaba? Tried to drag you in on this? Made me look after you again?_

Stop that, Chie wants to tell it. _Stop_. It's wrong. That thing is wrong. She'd never think that.

"So, was it another fight with your folks?" she asks, tentatively. She regrets it a moment later, when the tension flies back around them.

"It isn't like that," she says. "Really."

"Yukiko, I—"

"I wanted to go somewhere with you. Anywhere that wasn't Inaba, anywhere that wasn't here—" Yukiko's face is pale green in the lights of the subway, shadow flickering on and off. "I thought you'd take me away if I asked you to." There's a tremor there, like resentment, like anger. Chie doesn't say what she really thinks: it _was_ a dumb idea, you ought to be _grateful_ I took you back to Inaba, how could you want me to leave my home, how could you want to leave _me_—

She's taking Yukiko by the chin, and closing the gap between what she needs to say and what she means to say with her mouth. It's harder and angrier than she expects. Yukiko's responding in kind. She wraps her hands around Chie's neck, and pulls her down. No one else is on the train, and the train won't stop for a while. Just as well. Yukiko's keening for her, and Chie's kissing hard enough to swell lips, biting at Yukiko's neck. She can hear the protests, half-formed against the shudders: you'll leave a mark, stop that.

But that's the whole point: to leave a mark, to take what's hers. Hurt her, not enough to make her intentions clear. Just enough to be painful. Just enough to bruise, just enough to show. Just enough to say it without speaking it: _don't you dare think of leaving. This is why._

Once she's satisfied the skin will bruise, she withdraws, breathing hard. Yukiko readjusts her uniform, feels her neck, and looks at Chie with hard, cool eyes. Almost angry. Not quite. Yukiko won't—Yukiko _can't_—be angry with Chie. The new knowledge fills her up with a giddy boldness that makes her smooth Yukiko's hair back, and let the back of her hand graze against Yukiko's face. Yukiko catches Chie's wrist, and pulls Chie toward her. When they kiss, Yukiko lets her feel teeth against her lips.

"Stay at my place tonight," Chie says, breath catching in her throat. "Please," she adds, even though she knows Yukiko's been waiting for the invitation. Yukiko nods, hand grips Chie's jacket. The grip becomes tighter and tighter the closer they get to Inaba, and her expression becomes emptier and emptier until Chie's sure: if Yukiko weren't holding on to her with that iron grip, she would have vanished into the air.

* * *

Yukiko never mentions running away from Inaba again. Chie convinces herself it never happened. The air around Yukiko is cool and calm, and sometimes disdainful. Something's gone sour between the two of them.

Chie knows that the next time Yukiko runs, Yukiko won't take her. She holds Yukiko tighter than she means to, as though the marks she leaves can keep Yukiko from leaving. Yukiko, for her part, whispers 'prince' into Chie's ear, over and over again. It stings. Chie pretends she doesn't hear it.

Some days she looks into a mirror and sees golden eyes and a shadow split across her face. There are shadows in her, and Yukiko is the source and the end.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **A darker take on my favorite P4 pairing. Written for the bathhouse meme: _What if, when they were younger, Chie actually did try to run away with Yukiko… and for whatever reason, ended up failing? Thus leading to Shadow!Yukiko's repressed anger at her (Chie) not being good enough to be her prince._


End file.
